Love Does

When it comes to love, the world is so confused. We love our children, but also LOVE pizza. However, one of those two objects of love will actually causes us to DO something, and one of them won’t (I’m sure you can figure out which ones which).

My husband, Derek, and I have been reading and memorizing this verse over the past couple months:

“This is how we know what love is, that Jesus Christ laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. If anyone has any material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need, yet has no pity on them, the love of God is not in that person. Dear children, let us not love with words or speech, but with actions and in truth.”

1 John 3:16-18

In short, what Jesus is saying is that LOVE DOES. Sure, love involves words or speech, but that’s the easy part. The hardest part, but yet the truest indicator of love is when it moves you to action. In fact, if your love DOESN’T, then it’s probably safe to say that it’s not really love.

If Jesus tells us that this is what love really looks like, which he modeled for us on the cross, then this is the type of love we have to strive for! Throughout July at LifePoint we are doing our “Love Does” campaign, where we try to match our hands and feet to our hearts and minds. This year we are going above and beyond to tell Horizons Social Services that we LOVE them. Because we love them, we not only want to tell them, but we want to show them.

So, throughout July we will be blessing Horizons in fourunique ways:

We are collecting laundry detergenton Sunday mornings, and the kids are collecting hair and body wash. While Horizons is always in need of food, household supplies is one thing that they never get, and it would be a huge blessing to the friends and clients to be able to receive laundry detergent. Our goal is to collect 200 gallons of laundry detergent, which would be able to wash half of Quincy’s laundry.

The LifePoint staff wants to show our love, support, and thankfulness for the Horizons staff throughout July. We will be doing something simple each week for them, just to say, “we love you!” If you have any ideas or want to bless the staff, please share them with us.

Then, on the last weekend of July we will be talking about Horizons’ “Be One”campaign, which is a fundraising effort to help gain awareness and supporters through monthly giving. It is through the generosity of supporters that Horizons can continue to live out their mission: “to feed the poor and hungry in our community, motivated by the love of Jesus.”

So, what does LOVING Horizons look like for you this July? In what ways do you feel God nudging you to show your love to them? Pray about it and ask God to makes us DOERS of love, not merely talkers.

In the same way that Jesus has to die to show us the fullest expression of his love, so the church must show love to the world around us. We don’t want people to just know they are loved; we want them to be changed by love!